
Qass- P^ ,^5 f?7 
Book ih] 

By bequest of I ^ 5 w ^ 

William Lukens Shoemaker 



jM^UD, 



AND OTHER POEMS 



MAUD, 



OTHER POEMS 



B Y 
ALFRED TENNYSON, D.C.L., 

POET LAUREATE. 



BOSTON: 
TICK NOR AND FIELDS 

MDCCCLV. 



I 

|8 



h\ 



£-^^ 



Gift. 

"W. L. Shoemaker 
I S '06 



Stereotyped by 

HOBART & ROBEINS, 

New England Type and Stereotype Foundery, 



CONTENTS. 



MAUD 7 

THE BllOOK: AN" IDYL 107 

THE LETTERS 121 

ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON" . 127 

THE DAISY 143 

TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE, 151 

WILL 155 

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE .... 157 



M: A.TJ D 



I. 
1. 

I HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little 
wood, 

Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood- 
red heath, 

The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of 
blood, 

And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers 
'Death.' 



8 MAUD. 

2. 

For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was 

found, 
His who had given me life — father ! God ! 

w^as it well ? — 
Mangled, and flatten'd, and crush'd, and dinted into 

the ground : 
There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he 

fell. 

3. 

Did he fling himself down ? who knows ? for a great 

speculation had fail'd. 
And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever 

wann'd with despair^ 
And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken 

worldling wail'd. 
And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove 

thro' the air. 



MAUD. 9 

I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were 

stirr'd 
By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a 

whisper'd fright, 
And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on 

my heart as I heard 
The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the 

shuddering night. 

5. 

Villany somewhere ! whose ? One says, we are 

villains all. 
Not he : his honest fame should at least by me be 

maintain'd : 
But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and 

the Hall, 
Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us 

flaccid and drain'd. 



10 MAUD. 

6. 

Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace ? we 

have made them a curse, 
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its 

own ; 
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or 

worse 
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his 

own hearthstone ? 

7. 
But these are the days of advance, the works of the 

men of mind, 
When who but a fool would have faith in a 

tradesman's ware or his vt'ord ? 
Is it peace or war ? Civil war, as I think, and that 

of a kind 
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the 

sword. 



MAUD. 11 



8. 



Sooner or later I too may passively take the 

print 
Of the golden age — why not ? I have neither hope 

nor trust ; 
May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as 

a flint, 
Cheat and be cheated, and die : v^rho knows ? we are 

ashes and dust. 

9. 

Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days 

gone by, 
"When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, 

each sex, like swine. 
When only the ledger lives, and when only not all 

men lie ; , 
Peace in her vineyard — yes ! — but a company 

forges the wine. 



12 MAUD. 

10. 

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's 

head, 
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the 

trampled wife, 
While chalk and alum and plaster are sold to 

the poor for bread. 
And the spirit of murder works in the very means 

of life. 

11. 

And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the villanous 

centre-bits 
Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless 

nights. 
While another is cheating the sick of a few last 

gasps, as he sits 
To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson 

lights. 



MAUD. 13 

12. 

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a 

burial fee, 
And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's 

bones, 
Is it peace or war ? better, war ! loud war by land 

and by sea, 
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred 

thrones. 

13. 

For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round 
by the hill, 

And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the. three- 
decker out of the foam. 

That the smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue would leap 
from his counter and till, 

And strike, if he could, were it ^but with his cheating 
yard-wand, home. 



14 I\LA.UD. 

14. 
There are workmen up at the Hall: they are 

coming back from abroad, 
The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a 

millionnaire : 
I have heard, I know not whence, of the singular 

beauty of Maud, 
I play'd with the girl when a child ; she promised 

then to be fair. 

15. 

Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles 

and childish escapes, 
Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy of 

the Hall, 
Maud with her sweet purse-n;outh when my father 

dangled the grapes, 
Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced 

darling of all, — 



MAUD. 15 

16. 

What is she now ? My dreams are bad. She may 

brmg me a curse. 
No, there is fatter game on the moor ; she will let 

me alone. 
Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether woman 

or man be the worse. 
1 will bury myself in my books, and the Devil may 

pipe to his own. 



16 MAUD. 



11. 

Long have I sigh'd for a calm : God grant I may 

find it at last ! 
It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither 

savor nor salt, 
But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her 

carriage past, 
Perfectly beautiful : let it be granted her : where is 

the fault? 
All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to 

be seen) 
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null. 
Dead perfection, no more; nothing more, if it had 

not been 



MAUD. 17 

For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour's defect 

of the rose, 
Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, 

too full, 
Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a 

sensitive nose, 
From which I escaped heart-free, with the least 

little touch of spleen. 



IS 3IAUD. 



III. 

Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly 

meek, 
Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly was 

drown'd, 
Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on 

the cheek, 
Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a gloom 

profound ; 
Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a transient 

wrong 
Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever as 

pale as before 
Growing and fading and growing upon me without 

a sound, 



MAUD. 19 

Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half the 

night long 
Growing and fading and growing, till I could bear 

it no more, 
But arose, and all by myself in my own dark garden 

ground, 
Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung ship- 
wrecking roar. 
Now to the scream of a madden'd beach draf^a'd 

down by the wave, 
Walk'd in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and 

found 
The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his 

grave. 



20 MAUD. 



IV, 



1. 

A BULLION emeralds break from the ruby-budded 

lime 
In the little grove where I sit — ah, wherefore 

cannot 1 be 
Like things of the season gay^ like the bountiful 

season bland, 
When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a 

softer clime, 
Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent 

of sea. 
The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the 

land? 



MAUD. 21 

2. 

Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet 

and small ! 
And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, scandal, 

and spite; 
And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies 

as a Czar ; 
And here on the landward side, by a red rock, 

glimmers the Hall ; 
And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass like 

a light ; 
But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my leading 

star ! 

3. 

When have I bow'd to her father, the wrinkled head 

of the race ? 
I met her abroad with her brother, but not to her 

brother I bow'd : 



22 3IAUD. 

I bow'd to his lady-sister as she rode by on the 

moor ; 
But the fire of a foolish pride flash'd over her 

beautiful face. 
child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in being 

so proud ; 
Your father has wealth well -gotten, and I am 

nameless and poor. 



4. 

I keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander 

and steal ; 
I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic, or 

like 
A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its 

way : 
For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher 

can heal : 



MAUD. 



23 



The IMayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow 

spear'd by the shrike, 
And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of 

plunder and prey. 



5. 

We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair 

in her flower ; 
Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen 

hand at a game 
That pushes us off from the board, and others ever 

succeed ? 
Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for an 

hour; 
We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a 

brother's shame ; 
However we brave it out, we men are a little 

breed. 



24 MAUD. 



A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of 

Earth, 
For him did his high sun flame, and his river 

billowing ran, 
And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's 

crowning race. 
As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for 

his birth, 
So many a million of ages have gone to the making 

of man : 
He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not too 

base ? 

7. 

The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and 

vain. 
An eye wxll-practised in nature, a spirit bounded 

and poor ; 



MAUD. 25 

The passionate heart of the poet is whiii'd into folly 

and vice. 
I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate 

brain ; 
For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, 

were more 
Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a 

garden of spice. 



8. 

For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid b}- 

the veil. 
Who knows the ways of the world, how God will 

bring them about ? 
Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world is 

wide. 
Shall I weep if a Poland fall ? shall I shriek if a 

Hungary fail ? 



26 MAUD. 

Or an infant civilization be ruled with rod or with 

knout ? 
I have not made the world, and He that made it 

will guide. 



Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet v/oodland 

ways, 
Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace be 

my lot. 
Far off from the clamor of liars belied in the hubbub 

of lies ; 
From the long-neck'd geese of the world that are 

ever hissing dispraise 
Because their natures are little, and, whether he 

heed it or not. 
Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of 

poisonous flies. 



MAUD. 27 



10. 



And most of all would I flee from the cruel madness 

of love, 
The honey of poison-flowers and all the measureless 

ill. 
Ah Maud, you milk-white fawn, you are all unmeet 

for a wife. 
Your mother is mute in her grave as her image in 

marble above ; 
Your father is ever in London, you wander about at 

your will ; 
You have but fed on the roses, and lain in the lilies 

of life. 



28 MAUD. 



1. 

A VOICE by the cedar tree, 

In the meadow under the Hall ! 

She is singing an air that is known to me, 

A passionate ballad gallant and gay, 

A martial song like a trumpet's call ! 

Singing alone in the morning of life. 

In the happy morning of life and of May, 

Singing of men that in battle array, 

Ready in heart and ready in hand, 

March with banner and bugle and fife 

To the death, for their native land. 

2. 

Maud with her exquisite face. 

And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, 



MAUD. 



29 



And feet like sunny gems on an English green, 
Maud m the light of her youth and her grace, 
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die, 
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean, 
And myself so languid and base. 



Silence, beautiful voice ! 

Be still, for you only trouble the mind 

With a joy in which I cannot rejoice, 

A glory I shall not find. 

Still ! I will hear you no more, 

For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice 

But to move to the meadow and fall before 

Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore. 

Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind, 

Not her, not her, but a voice. 



30 MAUD. 



VI. 



1. 

Morning arises stormy and pale, 

No sun, but a wannish glare 

In fold upon fold of hueless cloud, 

And the budded peaks of the wood are bow'd 

Caught and cuff'd by the gale : 

I had fancied it would be fair. 

2. 

Whom but Maud should I meet 
Last night, when the sunset burn'd 
On the blossom'd gable-ends 
At the head of the village street, 



MAUD. 81 

Whom but Maud should I meet ? 

And she touch'd my hand with a smile so sweet 

She made me divine amends 

For a courtesy not return'd. 

3. 

And thus a delicate spark 

Of glowing and growing light 

Thro' the livelong hours of the dark 

Kept itself warm in the heart of my dreams, 

Ready to burst in a color'd flame ; 

Till at last when the morning came 

In a cloud, it faded, and seems 

But an ashen-gray delight. 

4. 

What if with her sunny hair, 
And smile as sunny as cold. 
She meant to weave me a snare 
Of some coquettish deceit, 



32 MAUD. 

Cleopatra-like as of old 

To entangle me when we met, 

To have her lion roll m a silken net 

And fawn at a victor's feet. 

5. 

Ah, what shall I be at fifty- 
Should Nature keep me alive. 
If I find the world so bitter 
When I am but twenty-five ? 
Yet, if she were not a cheat, 
If Maud were all that she seem'd, 
And her smile w^re all that I dream'd, 
Then the world were not so bitter 
But a smile could make it sweet. 



What if tho' her eye seem'd full 
Of a kind intent to me. 
What if that dandy-despot, he, 



MAUD. 



33 



That jewell'd mass of millinery, 
That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull 
Smelling of musk and of insolence, 
Her brother, from whom I keep aloof, 
Who wants the finer politic sense 
To mask, tho' but in his own behoof. 
With a glassy smile his brutal scorn — 
What if he had told her yester-morn 
How prettily for his own sweet sake 
A face of tenderness might be feign'd. 
And a moist mirage in desert eyes, 
That so, when the rotten hustings shake 
In another month to his brazen lies, 
A wretched vote may be gain'd. 

7. 

For a raven ever croaks, at my side. 

Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward, 

Or thou w41t prove their tool. 

Yea too, myself from myself I guard, 
3 



34 MAUD. 

For often a man's own angry pride 
Is cap and bells for a fool. 

8. 

Perhaps the smile and tender tone 

Came out of her pitying womanhood, 

For am I not, am I not, here alone 

So many a summer since she died, 

My mother, who was so gentle and good? 

Living alone in an empty house, 

Here half-hid in the gleaming wood. 

Where I hear the dead at midday moan, 

And the shrieking rush of the w^ainscot mouse, 

And my own sad name in corners cried, 

When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown 

About its echoing chambers wide. 

Till a morbid hate and horror have grown 

Of a world in which 1 have hardly mixt. 

And a morbid eating lichen fixt 

On a heart half-turn'd to stone. 



MAUD. 

9. 

heart of stone, are you flesh, and caught 
B}^ that you swore to withstand ? 

For what was it else wdthin me wrought 
But, I fear, the new strong wine of love, 
That made my tongue so stammer and trip 
When I saw the treasured splendor, her hand, 
Come sliding out of her sacred glove, 
And the sunlight broke from her lip ? 

10. 

1 have play'd with her when a child ; 
She remembers it now we meet. 

Ah well, well, well, I may be beguiled 

By some coquettish deceit. 

Yet, if she were not a cheat, 

If Maud were all that she seem'd, 

And her smile had all that I dream'd, 

Then the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could make it sweet. 



35 



36 



MAUD. 



VII. 



1. 



Did I hear it half in a doze 

Long since, I know not where ? 

Did I dream it an hour ago, 
When asleep in this arm-chair ? 

2. 

Men were drinking together, 
Drinking and talking of me ; 

' Well, if it prove a girl, the boy- 
Will have plenty : so let it be.' 

3. 
Is it an echo of something 

Read with a boy's delight, 
Viziers nodding together 

In some Arabian night ? 



MAUD. 37 



4. 
Strange, that I hear two men, 

Somewhere, talking of me ; 
' Well, if it prove a girl, my boy 

Will have plenty : so let it be.' 



3S 3IAUD. 



VIII. 

She came to the village church, 

And sat by a pillar alone ; 

An angel watching an urn 

Wept over her, carved in stone ; 

And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, 

And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush'd 

To find they were met by my own ; 

And suddenly, sweetly, my heart beat stronger 

And thicker, until I heard no longer 

The snowy-banded, dilettante, 

Delicate-handed priest intone ; 

And thought, is it pride, and mused and sigh'd 

' No surely, now it cannot be pride.' 



BIATJD. 



39 



IX. 

I WAS walking a mile, 
More than a mile from the shore, 
The sun look'd out with a smile, 
Betwixt the cloud and the moor. 
And riding at set of day 
Over the dark moor land, 
Rapidly riding far away. 
She waved to me with her hand. 
There were two at her side. 
Something flash'd in the sun, 
Down by the hill I saw them ride, 
In a moment they were gone : 



40 MAUD. 



Like a sudden spark 
Struck vainly in the night, 
And back returns the dark . 
With no more hope of light. 



MAUD. 



41 



1. 

Sick, am 1 sick of a jealous dread ? 
Was not one of the two at her side 
This new-made lord, whose splendor plucks 
The slavish hat from the villager's head ? 
Whose old grandfather has lately died, 
Gone to a blacker pit, for whom 
Grimy nakedness dragging his tracks 
And laying his trams in a poison'd gloom 
Wrought, till he crept from a gutted 
Master of half a servile shire, 
And left his coal all turn'd into gold 
To a grandson, first of his noble line, 



mme 



42 



Rich in the grace all women desire, 
Strong in the power that all men adore, 
And simper and set their voices lower, 
And soften as if to a girl, and hold 
Awe-stricken breaths at a work divine. 
Seeing his gewgaw castle shine, 
New as his title, built last year. 
There amid perky larches and pine, 
And over the sullen-purple moor 
(Look at it) pricking a cockney ear. 

2. 

What, has he found my jewel out ? 
For one of the two that rode at her side 
Bound for the Hall, I am sure was he : 
Bound for the Hall, and I think for a bride. 
Blithe would her brother's acceptance be. 
Maud could be gracious too, no doubt. 
To a lord, a captain, a padded shape. 



MAUD. 43 

A bought commission, a waxen face, 
A rabbit mouth that is ever agape — 
Bought ? what is it he cannot buy ? 
And therefore splenetic, personal, base. 
Sick, sick to the heart of life, am I. 

3. 

Last week came one to the county town, 
To preach our poor little army down, 
And play the game of the despot kings, 
Tho' the state has done it and thrice as well : 
This broad-brimra'd hawker of holy things. 
Whose ear is stuft with his cotton, and rings 
Even in dreams to the chink of his pence. 
This huckster put down war ! can he tell 
Whether war be a cause or a consequence ? 
Put down the passions that make earth Hell ! 
Down with ambition, avarice, pride. 
Jealousy, down ! cut off from the mind 



44 MAUD. 

The bitter springs of anger and fear ; 
Down too, down at your own fireside, 
With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
For each is at war with mankind. 



4. 

Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand. 
Like some of the simple great ones gone 
For ever and ever by, 
One still strong man in a blatant land, 
Whatever they call him, what care I, 
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat — one 
Who can rule and dare not lie. 



MAUD. 



45 



XL 

1. 

LET the solid ground 
Not fail beneath my feet 

Before my life has found 

What some have found so sweet ; 
Then let come what come may, 
What matter if I go mad, 

1 shall have had my day. 



2. 

Let the sweet heavens endure, 
Not close and darken above me 



46 MAUD. 

Before I am quite quite sure 

That there is one to love me ; 
Then let come what come may 
To a life that has been so sad, 
I shall have had my day. 



MAUD. 47 



XII. 
1. 

Birds in the high Hall-garden 

When twilight was falling, 
Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, 

They were crying and calling. 
2. 
Where was Maud ? in our wood ; 

And I, who else, was with her, 
Gathering woodland lilies. 

Myriads blow together. 
3. 
Birds in our wood sang 

Kinging thro' the valleys, 
Maud is here, here, here 



In among the lilies. 



48 MAUD. 

4. 

I kiss'd her slender hand, 

She took the kiss sedately ; 

Maud is not seventeen, 

But she is tall and stately. 

5. 
I to cry out on pride 

Who have won her favor ! 

Maud were sure of Heaven 

If lowliness could save her. 

6. 

1 know the way she went 

Home with her maiden posy, 

For her feet have touched the meadows 

And left the daisies rosy. 

7. 
Birds in the high Hall-garden 

Were crying and calling to her, 

Where is Maud, Maud, Maud, 

One is come to woo her. 



MAUD. 
8. 

Look, a horse at the door, 

And little King Charles is snarling, 
Go back, my lord, across the moor, 

You are not her darling. 



49 



50 MAUD. 



XIU. 



1. 



Scorn'd, to be scorned by one that I scorn, 

Is that a matter to make me fret ? 

That a calamity hard to be borne ? 

Well, he may live to hate me yet. 

Fool that I am to be vext with his pride ! 

I past hiin, I was crossing his lands; 

He stood on the path a little aside ; 

His face, as I grant, in spite of spite, 

Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and white, 

And six feet two, as I think, he stands ; 

But his essences turn'd the live air sick. 

And barbarous opulence jewel-thick 

Sunn'd itself on his breast and his hands. 



MAUD. 51 



Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, 
I long'd so earnestly then and there 
To give him the grasp of fellowship ; 
But while I past he was humming an air, 
Stopt, and then with a riding-whip 
Leisurely tapping a glossy boot, 
And curving a contumelious lip, 
Gorgonised me from head to foot 
With a stony British stare. 



Why sits he here in his father's chair ? 
That old man never comes to his place : 
Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen ? 
For only once, in the village street, 
Last year, I caught a glimpse of his face, 
A gray old wolf and a lean. 
Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat ; 



52 MAUD. 

For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit, 
She might b}^ a true descent be untrue ; 
And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet : 
Tho' I fancy her sweetness only due 
To the sweeter blood by the other side ; 
Her mother has been a thing complete, 
However she came to be so allied. 
And fair without, faithful within, 
Maud to him is nothing akin : 
Some peculiar mystic grace 
Made her only the child of her mother. 
And heap'd the whole inherited sin 
On that huge scapegoat of the race, 
All, all upon the brother. 

4. 

Peace, angry spirit, and let him be ! 
Has not his sister smiled on me ? 



JIAUD. 53 



XIV. 

1. 

Maud has a garden of roses 
And lilies fair on a lawn ; 
There she walks in her state 
And tends upon bed and bower ; 
And thither I climb'd at dawn 
And stood by her garden-gate ; 
A lion ramps at the top, 
He is claspt by a passion-flower. 

2. 

Maud's own little oak-room 
(Which Maud, like a precious stone 



54 MAUD. 

Set in the heart of the carven gloom, 

Lights with herself, when alone 

She sits by her music and books, 

And her brother lingers late 

With a roystering company) looks 

Upon Maud's own garden gate : 

And I thought as I stood, if a hand, as white 

As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid 

On the hasp of the window, and my Delight 

Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to glide 

Like a beam of the seventh Heaven, down to my 

side, 
There were but a step to be made. 

s. 

The fancy flatter'd m}^ mind, 

And again seem'd overbold ; 

Now I thought that she cared for me, 

Now I thought she was kind 

Only because she was cold. 



MAUD. O-J 

. 4. 

I heard no sound where I stood 

But the rivulet on from the lawn 

Running down to my own dark wood ; 

Or the voice of the long sea-wave as it swell'd 

Now and then in the dim-gray dawn ; 

But I look'd, and round, all round the house I 

beheld 
The death -white curtain drawn ; 
Felt a horror over me creep, 
Prickle my skin and catch my breath, 
Knew that the death-white curtain meant but 

sleep, 
Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the sleep 

of death. 



56 I\IAUD. 



XV. 



So dark a mind within me dwells, 
And I make myself such evil cheer, 

That if I be dear to some one else. 

Then some one else may have much to fear ; 

But if I be dear to some one else, 

Then I should be to myself more dear. 

Shall I not take care of all that I think, 

Yea, ev'n of wretched meat and drink, 

If I be dear, 

If I be dear to some one else. 



MAUD. 57 



XVI. 

1. 

This lump of earth has left his estate 

The lighter by the loss of his weight ; 

And so that he find what he went to seek, 

And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown 

His heart in the gross mud-honey of town. 

He may stay for a year who has gone for a week ; 

But this is the day when I must speak, 

And I see my Oread coming down, 

this is the day ! 

beautiful creature, what am I 

That I dare to look her way ; 

Think 1 may hold dominion sweet. 



58 MAUD. 

Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast, 
And dream of her beauty with tender dread, 
Froin the delicate Arab arch of her feet 
To the grace that, bright and light as the crest 
Of a peacock, sits on her shining head. 
And she knows it not : 0, if she knew it, 
To know her beauty might half undo it. 
I know it the one bright thing to save 
My yet young life in the wilds of Time, 
Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime. 
Perhaps from a selfish grave. 

2. 

What, if she be fasten'd to this fool lord, 

Dare I bid her abide by her word ? 

Should I love her so well if she 

Had given her word to a thing so low? 

Shall I love her as well if she 

Can break her word were it even for me ? 

I trust that it is not so. 



MAUD. 



Catch not my breath, clamorous heart, 
Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye, 
For I must tell her before we part, 
I must tell her, or die. 



59 



60 MAUD. 



XVII. 

Go not, happy day, 

From the shining fields, 
Go not, happy day, 

Till the maiden yields. 
Kosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks. 

And a rose her mouth. 
When the happy Yes 

Falters from her lips, 
Pass and blush the news 

O'er the blowing ships. 
Over blowing seas. 

Over seas at rest, 



MAUD. 61 



Pass the happy news, 

Blush it thro' the West ; 
Till the red man dance 

By his red cedar tree, 
And the red man's babe 

Leap, beyond the sea. 
Blush from West to East, 

Blush from East to West, 
Till the West is East, 

Blush it thro' the West. 
Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks, 

And a rose her mouth. 



62 MAUD. 



XVIII. 

1. 

I HAYE led her home, my love, my only friend. 

There is none like her, none. 

And never yet so warmly ran my blood 

And sweetly, on and on 

Calming itself to the long-wish'd-for end, 

Full to the banks, close on the promised good. 



2. 

None like her, none. 

Just now the dry-tongued laurels' pattering talk 

Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk, 



MAUD. 



63 



And shook my heart to think she comes once more ; 

But even then I heard her close the door, 

The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is gone. 

3. 
There is none like her, none. 
Nor will be when our summers have deceased. 
0, art thou sighing for Lebanon 
In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious 

East, 
Sighing for Lebanon, 

Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased, 
Upon a pastoral slope as fair. 
And looking to the South, and fed 
With honey'd rain and delicate air. 
And haunted by the starry head 
Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, 
And made my life a perfumed altar-flame ; 
And over whom thy darkness must have spread 
With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 



64 MAUD. 

Forefathers of the thornless garden, there 
Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom she 
came. 

4. 
Here will I lie, while these long branches sway, 
And you fair stars that crown a happy day 
Go in and out as if at merry play. 
Who am no more so all forlorn, 
As when it seem'd far better to be born 
To labor and the mattock-hard en'd hand. 
Than nursed at ease and brought to understand 
A sad astrology, the boundless plan 
That makes you tyrants in your iron skies. 
Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, 
Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand 
His nothingness into man. 

5. 

But now shine on, and what care I, 

Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl 



MAUD. 



65 



The counter-charm of space and hollow sky, 

And do accept my madness, and would die 

To save from some slight shame one simple girl. 



Would die ; for sullen-seeming Death may give 

More life to Love than is or ever was 

In our low world, where yet 't is sweet to live. 

Let no one ask me how it came to pass ; 

It seems that I am happy, that to me 

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, 

A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 

7. 
Not die ; but live a life of truest breath. 
And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. 
0, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs, 
Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death ? 
Make answer, Maud my bliss, 
Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss, 
5 



66 MAUD. 

Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this? 
* The dusky strand of Death inwoven here 
With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more 
dear.' 

8. 

Is that enchanted moan only the swell 
Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay ? 
And hark the clock within, the silver knell 
Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, 
And died to live, long as my pulses play; 
But now by this my love has closed her sight 
And given false death her hand, and stol'n away 
To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell 
Among the fragments of the golden day. 
May nothing there her maiden grace affright ! 
Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. 
My bride to be, my evermore delight, 
My own heart's heart and ownest own, farewell. 
It is but for a little space I go : 



MAUD. 67 

And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell 
Beat to the noiseless music of the night ! 
Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow 
Of your soft splendors that you look so bright ? 
/ have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell. 
Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, 
Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, 
Blest, but for some dark under-current woe 
That seems to draw — but it shall not be so : 
Let all be well, be well. 



6S .MAUD. 



XIX. 

1. 

Strange, that I felt so gay, 
Strange, that I tried to-day 
To beguile her melancholy ; 
The Sultan, as we name him, — 
She did not wish to blame him — 
But he vext her and perplext her 
With his worldly talk and folly : 
Was it gentle to reprove her 
For stealing out of view 
From a little lazy lover 
Who but claims her as his due ? 
Or for chilling his caresses 
By the coldness of her manners, 



MAUD. 69 

Nay, the plainness of her dresses ? 
Now I know her but in two, 
Nor can pronounce upon it 
If one should ask me whether 
The habit, hat, and feather. 
Or the frock and gypsy bonnet 
Be the neater and completer ; 
For nothing can be sweeter 
Than maiden Maud in either. 



But to-morrow, if we live, 
Our ponderous squire will give 
A grand political dinner 
To half the squirelings near ; 
And Maud will wear her jewels. 
And the bird of prey will hover. 
And the titmouse hope to win her 
With his chirrup at her ear. 



70 MAUD. 



3. 

A grand political dinner 

To the men of many acres, 

A gathering of the Tory, 

A dinner and then a dance 

For the maids and marriage-makers, 

And every eye but mine will glance 

At Maud in all her glory. 

4. 

For I am not invited, 

But, with the Sultan's pardon, 

I am all as well delighted, 

For I know her own rose-garden, 

And mean to linger in it 

Till the dancing will be over ; 

And then, O then, come out to me 

For a minute, but for a minute. 

Come out to your own true lover, 



MAUD. 71 

That your true lover may see 
Your glory also, and render 
All homage to his own darling, 
Queen Maud in all her splendor. 



12 MAUD. 



XX. 

Rivulet crossing my ground, 

And bringing me down from the Hall 

This garden-rose that I found, 

Forgetful of Maud and me. 

And lost in trouble and moving round 

Here at the head of a tinkling fall, 

And trying to pass to the sea ; 

O Rivulet, born at the Hall, 

My Maud has sent it by thee 

(If I read her sweet will right) 

On a blushing mission to me. 

Saying in odor and color, 'Ah, be - 

Among the roses to-night.' 



MAUD. 73 



XXI. 

1. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown, 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone ; 

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
And the musk of the roses blown. 

2. 

For a breeze of morning moves, 
And the planet of Love is on high, 

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves 
On a bed of daffodil sky, 

To faint in the light of the sun she loves, 
To faint in his light, and to die. 



74 MAUD. 

3. 

All night have the roses heard 

The flute, violin, bassoon ; 
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd 

To the dancers dancing in tune ; 
Till a silence fell with the waking bird, 

And a hush with the settinsr moon. 



4. 

I said to the lily, * There is but one 

With whom she has heart to be gay. 
When will the dancers leave her alone ? 

She is weary of dance and play.' 
Now half to the setting moon are gone, 

And half to the rising day ; 
Low on the sand and loud on the stone 

The last wheel echoes away. 



MAUD. 75 

6. 

I said to the rose, * The brief night goes 

In babble and revel and wine. 
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, 

For one that will never be thine ? 
But mine, but mine,' so I sware to the rose, 

* For ever and ever, mine.' 

6. 

And the soul of the rose went into my blood, 

As the music clash'd in the hall ; 
And long by the garden lake I stood, 

For I heard your rivulet fall 
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, 

Our wood, that is dearer than all ; 

7. 
From the meadow your walks have left so sweet 
That whenever a March-wind sighs 



76 MAUD. 

He sets the jewel-print of your feet 
In violets blue as your eyes, 

To the woody hollows in which we meet 
And the valleys of Paradise. 



8. 
The slender acacia would not shake 

One long milk-bloom on the tree ; 
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake, 

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea ; 
But the rose was awake all night for your sake, 

Knowing your promise to me ; 
The lilies and roses were all awake. 

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 



9. 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 
Come hither, the dances are done, 



MAUD. 

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 

Queen lily and rose in one ; 
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 

To the flowers, and be their sun. 



10. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 

From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear; 

She is coming, my life, my fate ; 
The red rose cries, ' She is near, she is near ;' 

And the white rose weeps, ' She is late ;' 
The larkspur listens, ' I hear, I hear ;' 

And the lily whispers, ♦ I wait.' 



11. 

She is coming, my own, my sweet 
Were it ever so airy a tread, 



My heart would hear her and beat, 
Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 

My dust would hear her and beat, 
Had I lain for a century dead ; 

Would start and tremble under her feet, 
And blossom in purple and red. 



MAUD. 



79 



XXII. 

1. 

' The fault was mine, the fault was mine ' — 

Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still, 

Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill ? ■ 

It is this guilty hand ! — 

And there rises ever a passionate cry 

From underneath in the darkening land — 

What is it that has been done ? 

dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky. 

The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun. 

The fires of Hell and of Hate ; 

For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word, 

When her brother ran in his rage to the gate, 



80 MAUD. 

He came with the babe-faced lord ; 

Heap'd on her terms of disgrace, 

And while she wept, and I strove to be cool, 

He fiercely gave me the lie, 

Till I with as fierce an anger spoke, 

And he struck me, madman, over the face. 

Struck me before the languid fool, 

Who was gaping and grinning by : 

Struck for himself an evil stroke ; 

Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe ; 

For front to front in an hour we stood. 

And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke 

From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood, 

And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code, 

That must have life for a blow. 

Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow. 

Was it he lay there with a fading eye ? 

* The fault was mine,' he whisper'd, ' fly ! ' 

Then glided out of the joyous wood 

The ghastly Wraith of one that I know ; 



MAUD. 81 

And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry, 
A cry for a brother's blood : 

It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till 
I die. 

2. 

Is it gone ? my pulses beat — 

What was it ? a lying trick of the brain ? 

Yet I thought I saw her stand, 

A shadow there at my feet, • 

High over the shadowy land. 

It is gone ; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain, 

When they should burst and drown with deluging 

storms 

The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust. 

The little hearts that know not how to forgive : 

Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just, 

Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms, 

That sting each other here in the dust ; 

We are not worthy to live. 
G 



82 MAUD. 



XXIII. 
1. 

See what a lovely shell, 
Small and pure as a pearl, 
Lying close to my foot, 
Frail, but a work divine, 
Made so fairily well 
With delicate spire and whorl, 
How exquisitely minute, 
A miracle of design ! 

2. 

What is it ? a learned man 
Could give it a clumsy name. 



MAUD. S3 



Let him name it who can, 
The beauty would be the same. 



The tiny cell is forlorn, 
Void of the little living will 
Tiiat made it stir on the shore. 
Did he stand at the diamond door 
Of his house in a rainbow frill ? 
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd, 
A golden foot or a fairy horn 
Thro' his dim water-world ? 



4. 

Slight, to be crush'd with a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand. 
Small, but a work divine, 
Frail, but of force to withstand, 



84 MAUD. 

Year upon year, the shock 
Of cataract seas that snap 
The three-decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock, 
Here on the Breton strand ! 

5. 

Breton, not Briton ; here 

Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast 

Of ancient fable and fear — 

Plagued with a flitting to and fro, 

A disease, a hard mechanic ghost 

That never came from on high 

Nor ever arose from below. 

But onl}^ moves with the moving eye, 

Flying along the land and the main — 

Why should it look like Maud ? 

Am I to be overawed 

By what I cannot but know 

Is a juggle born of the brain ? 



MAUD. 85 

6. 

Back from the Breton coast, 

Sick of a nameless fear, 

Back to the dark sea-line 

Looking, thinking of ail I have lost ; 

An old song vexes my ear ; 

But that of Lamech is mine. 



7. 

For years, a measureless ill. 
For years, for ever, to part — 
But she, she would love me still 
And as long, God, as she 
Have a grain of love for me. 
So long, no doubt, no doubt. 
Shall I nurse in my dark heart. 
However weary, a spark of will 
Not to be trampled out. 



86 BIA'JD. 

8. 
Strange, that the mind, when fraught 
With a passion so intense 
One would think that it well 
Might drown all life in the eye, — 
That it should, by being so overwrought, 
Suddenly strike on a sharper sense 
For a shell, or a flower, little things 
Which else would have been past by ! 
And now I remember, I, 
When he lay dying there, 
I noticed one of his many rings 
(For he had many, poor worm) and thought 
It his mother's hair. 

9. 

Who knows if he be dead ? 
Whether I need have fled ? 
Am I guilty of blood ? 



MAUD. 8' 

However this may be, 

Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, 

Wliile I am over the sea ! 

Let me and my passionate love go by, 

But speak to her all things holy and high, 

Whatever happen to me ! 

Me and my harmful love go by ; 

But come to her waking, find her asleep. 

Powers of the height. Powers of the deep, 

And comfort her tho' I die. 



88 MAUD. 



XXIV. 
1. 

O THAT 'twere possible 

After long grief and pain 

To find the arms of my true love 

Kound me once again ! 

2. 

When I was wont to meet her 
In the silent woody places 
Of the land that gave me birth, 
We stood tranced in long embraces 
Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter 
Than anything on earth. 



MAUD. 



89 



A shadow flits before me, 

Not thou, but like to thee ; 

Ah Christ, that it were possible 

For one short hour to see 

The souls we loved, that they might tell us 

What and where they be. 

4. 

It leads me forth at evening", 

It lightly winds and steals 

In a cold white robe before me, 

When all my spirit reels 

At the shouts, the leagues of lights, 

And the roaring of the wheels. 

5. 

Half the night I waste in sighs, 
Half in dreams I sorrow after 



90 MAUD. 

The delight of early skies ; 
In a wakeful doze I sorrow 
For the hand, the lips, the eyes, 
For the meeting of the morrow. 
The delight of happy laughter, 
The delight of low replies. 



6. 

'T is a morning pure and sweet, 
And a dewy splendor falls 
On the little flower that clings 
To the turrets and the walls ; 
'T is a morning pure and sweet, 
And the light and shadow fleet ; 
She is walking in the meadow, 
And the woodland echo ringfs : 
In a moment we shall meet ; 
She is singing in the meadow, 
And the rivulet at her feet 



MAUD. 91 

Ripples on in light and shadow 
Tn the ballad that she sings. 

7. 
Do I hear her sing as of old, 
My bird with the shining head, 
My own dove with the tender eye ? 
But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry. 
There is some one dying or dead, 
And a sullen thunder is roll'd ; 
For a tumult shakes the city, 
And I wake, my dream is fled ; 
In the shuddering dawn, behold, 
Without knowledge, without pity, 
By the curtains of my bed 
That abiding phantom cold. 

8. 

Get thee hence, nor come again, 
Mix not memory with doubt, 



92 MAUD. 

Pass, thou deathlike type of pain, 
Pass and cease to move about, 
'T is the blot upon the brain 
That will show itself without. 



9. 

Then I rise, the eave-drops fall, 
And the yellow vapors choke 
The great city sounding wide ; 
The day comes, a dull red ball 
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke 
On the misty river-tide. 



10. 

Thro' the hubbub of the market 

I steal, a wasted frame, 

It crosses here, it crosses there. 

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud, 



MAUD. 93 



The shadow still the same ; 
And on my heavy eyelids 
My anguish hangs like shame. 



11. 

Alas for her that met me, 

That heard me softly call^ 

Came glimmering thro' the laurels 

At the quiet evenfall, 

In the garden by the turrets 

Of the old manorial hall. 



12. 

Would the happy spirit descend, 
From the realms of light and song, 
In the chamber or the street, 
As she looks among the blest. 
Should I fear to greet my friend 



94 MAUD. 

Or to say 'forgive the wrong,' 
Or to ask her, ' take me, sweet, 
To the regions of thy rest ' ? 

13. 

But the broad light glares and beats, 

And the shadow flits and fleets 

And will not let me be ; 

And I loathe the squares and streets, 

And the faces that one meets, 

Hearts with no love for me : 

Always I long to creep 

Into some still cavern deep, 

There to weep, and weep, and weep 

My whole soul out to thee. 



MAUD. 95 



XXV. 

1. 

Dead, long dead, 

Long dead ! 

And my heart is a handful of dust, 

And the wheels go over my head, 

And my bones are shaken with pain, 

For into a shallow grave they are thrust, 

Only a yard beneath the street, 

And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat. 

The hoofs of the horses beat. 

Beat into my scalp and my brain, 

With never an end to the stream of passing feet, 

Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying, 

Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter, 



96 MAUD. 

And here beneath it is all as bad, 

For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so ; 

To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad ? 

But up and down and to and fro, 

Ever about me the dead men go; 

And then to hear a dead man chatter 

Is enough to drive one mad. 



Wretchedest age, since Time began, 

They cannot even bury a man ; 

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that are gone, 

Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read ; 

It is that which makes us loud in the world of the 

dead; 
There is none that does his work, not one ; 
A touch of their office might have sufficed, 
But the churchmen fain would kill their church, 
As the churches have kill'd their Christ. 



97 



3. 

See, there is one of us sobbing, 

No limit to his distress; 

And another, a lord of all things, praying 

To his own great self, as I guess ; 

And another, a statesman there, betraying 

His party-secret, fool, to the press ; 

And yonder a vile physician, blabbing 

The case of his patient — all for Vv-hat? 

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head, 

And wheedle a world that loves him not, 

For it is but a world of the dead. 

4. 

Nothing but idiot gabble ! 
For the prophecy given of old 
And then not understood, 
Has come to pass as foretold ; 
Not let any man think for the public good, 
7 



yS MAUD. 

But babble, merely for babble. 

For I never whisper'd a private affair 

Within the hearing of cat or mouse, 

No, not to myself in the closet alone, 

But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the 

house ; 
Everything came to be known : 
Who told him we were there ? 

5. 

Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back 

From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used 

to lie ; 
He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrown whelp 

to crack ; 
Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and die. 



Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, 

And curse me the British vermin, the rat ; 



MAUD. 99 

I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship, 

But I know that he lies and listens mute 

In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes : 

Arsenic, arsenic, sir, would do it, 

Except that now we poison our babes, poor souls ! 

[t is all used up for that. 

7. 

Tell him now : she is standing here at my head ; 

Not beautiful now, not even kind ; 

He may take her now ; for she never speaks her 

mind, 
But is ever the one thing silent here. 
She is not of us, as I divine ; 
She comes from another stiller world of the dead, 
Stiller, not fairer than mine. 



But I know where a garden grows, 
Fairer than aught in the world beside, 



100 MAUD. 

All made up of the lily and rose 

That blow by night, when the season is good, 

To the sound of dancing music and flutes : 

It is only flowers, they had no fruits, 

And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood ; 

For the keeper was one, so full of pride. 

He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride ; 

For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes, 

Would he have that hole in his side ? 

9. 

But what will the old man say ? 

He laid a cruel snare in a pit 

To catch a friend of mine one stormy day ; 

Yet now I could even weep to think of it ; 

For what will the old man say 

When he comes to the second corpse in the pit ? 

10. 

Friend, to be struck by the public foe. 



MAUD. 101 

Then to strike him and lay him low, 
That were a public merit, far, 
Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin , 
But the red life spilt for a private blow — 
I swear to you, lawful and lawless war 
Are scarcely even akin. 

11. 

me, why have they not buried me deep enough? 
Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough, 
Me, that was never a quiet sleeper ? 

Maybe still I am but half dead ; 
Then I cannot be wholly dumb; 

1 will cry to the steps above my head. 

And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come 
To bury me, bury me 
Deeper, ever so little deeper. 



102 MAUD. 



XXVI. 
1. 

My life has crept so long on a broken wing 
Thro' cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear, 
That I come to be grateful at last for a little 

thing : 
My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year 
When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs, 
And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer 
And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns 
Over Orion's grave low down in the west, 
That like a silent lightning under the stars 
She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band of the 

blest, 



MAUD. 103 

And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming 

wars — 
* And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have rest, 
Knowing I tarry for thee,' and pointed to Mars 
As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's 

breast. 

2. 

And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear 

delight 
To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes so 

fair. 
That had been in a weary world my one thing 

bright ; 
And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'd my despair 
When I thought that a war would arise in defence 

of the right. 
That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease. 
The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height, 
Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionnaire : 



104 MAUD. 

N"o more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace 
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, 
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase, 
Nor the cannon-bullet rust on the slothful shore, 
And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat, 
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more. 



And as months ran on and rumor of battle grew, 
' It is time, it is time, passionate heart,' said 1 
(For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and 

true), 
'It is time, passionate heart and morbid eye, 
That old hysterical mock-disease should die.' 
And I stood on a giant deck and mixed my breath 
With a loyal people shouting a battle cry, 
Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly 
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death. 



MAUD. 



105 



4. 

Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims 
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold, 
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and 

shames, 
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ; 
And hail once more to the banner of battle 

miroll'd ! 
Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall 

weep 
For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring 

claims. 
Yet God's just doom shall be wreak'd on a giant 

liar; 
And many a darkness into the light shall leap, 
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, 
And noble thought be freer under the sun. 
And the heart of a people beat with one desire ; 
For the long, long canker of peace is over and done ; 



106 MAUD. 

And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic 

deep, 
And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, 

flames 
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire. 



THE BEOOK; 



AN IDYL. 



' Here, by this brook, we parted ; I to the East 
And he for Italy — too late — too late : 
One whom the strong sons of the world despise ; 
For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share, 
And mellow metres more than cent for cent ; 
Nor could he understand how money breeds, 
Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could make 
The thing that is not as the thing that is. 
had he lived ! In our school-books we say, 
Of those that held their heads above the crowd. 
They flourish'd then or then ; but life in him 
107 



108 THE BROOK. 

Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch'd 
On such a time as goes before the leaf, 
When all the wood stands in a mist of green, 
And nothing perfect : yet the brook he loved, 
For which, in branding summers of Bengal, 
Or ev'n the sweet half-English Neilgherry air, 
I panted, seems, as I relisten to it, 
Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy, 
To me that loved him ; for " brook," he says, 
" O babbling brook," says Edmund in his rhyme, 
" Whence come you ? " and the brook, why not ? 
replies. 

I come from haunts of coot and hern, 

I make a sudden sally 
And sparkle out among the fern. 

To bicker down a valley. 

By thirty hills I hurry down. 

Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorps, a little town. 

And half a hundred bridges. 



THE BROOK. 109 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on for ever. 

' Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, 
Travelling to Naples. There is Darnle}'- bridge, 
It has more ivy; there the river; and there 
Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet. 

I chatter over stony ways. 

In little sharps and trebles, 
I bubble into eddying bays, 

I babble on the pel)bles. 

With many a curve my banks I fret 

By many a field and fiillow. 
And many a fairy foreland set 

"With willow-weed and mallow. 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go. 

But I go on for ever. 



110 THE BROOK. 

' But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird ; 
Old Philip ; all about the fields you caught 
His weary daylong chirping, like the dry 
High>eibow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. 

I wind about, and in and out, 
With here a blossom sailing, 

And here and there a lusty trout, 
And here and there a grayling. 

And here and there a foamy flake 

Upon me, as I travel. 
With many a silvery waterbreak 

Above the golden gravel, 

And drav?- them all along, and flow 

To join the brimming river. 
For men may come and men may go. 

But I go on for ever. 

' O darling Katie Willows, his one child ! 
A maiden of our century, yet most meek ; 
A daughter of our meadows, yet not coarse ; 



THE BROOK. Ill 

Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand ; 
Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair 
In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 
Divides three-fold to show the fruit within. 

* Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn, 
Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, 
James Willows, of one name and heart with her. 
For here I came, twenty years back — the week 
Before I parted with poor Edmund ; crost 
By that old bridge which, half in ruins then, 
Still makes a hoary eyebrow for the gleam 
Beyond it, where the waters marry — crost, 
Whistling a random bar of Bonny Doon, 
And push'd at Philip's garden-gate. The gate, 
Half-parted from a weak and scolding hinge, 
Stuck ; and he clamor'd from a casement, " run," 
To Katie somewhere in the walks below, 
" Run, Katie ! " Katie never ran : she moved 
To meet me, winding under woodbine bowers, 



112 THE BROOK. 

A little flutter'd, with her eyelids down, 
Fresh apple-blossom, blushing for a boon. 

' What was it ? less of sentiment than sense 
Had Katie ; not illiterate ; neither one 
Who dabbling in the fount of fictive tears, 
And nursed by mealy-mouth'd philanthropies. 
Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. 

' She told me. She and James had quarrell'd. 
Why? 
What cause of quarrel ? None, she said, no cause ; 
James had no cause : but when I prest the cause, 
I learnt that James had flickering jealousies 
Which anger'd her. Who anger'd James ? I said. 
But Katie snatch'd her eyes at once from mine, 
And sketching with her slender pointed foot 
Some figure like a wizard's pentagram 
On garden gravel, let my query pass 
Unclaim'd, in flushing silence, till I ask'd 



THE BllOOK. 113 

If James were coming. " Coming every day," 

She answered, " ever longing to explain, 

But evermore her father came across 

With some long-winded tale, and broke him short ; 

And James departed vext with him and her." 

How could I help her ? " Would I — was it 

wrong ? " 
(Claspt hands and that petitionary grace 
Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke) 
" O would I take her father for one hour, 
For one half-hour, and let him talk to me ! " 
And even while she spoke, I saw where James 
Made toward us, like a wader in the surf, 
Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow-sweet. 

' O Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake ! 
For in I went, and call'd old Philip out 
To show the farm : full willingly he rose : 
He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes 
Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went. 



114 THE BROOK. 

He praised his land, his horses, his machines ; 
He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs; 
He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens ; 
His pigeons, who in session on their roofs 
Approved him, bowing at their own deserts : 
Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took 
Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, 
And naming those, his friends, for whom they 

were : 
Then crost the common into Darnley chase 
To show Sir Arthur's deer. In copse and fern 
Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. 
Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech. 
He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said : 
' That was the four-year-old I sold the Squire.' 
And there he told a long long-winded tale 
Of how the Squire had seen the colt at grass, 
And how it was the thing his daughter wish'd, 
And how he sent the bailiff to the farm 
To learn the price, and what the price he ask'd. 



THE BROOK. 115 

And how the bailiff swore that he \vas mad, 

But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; 

He gave them line : and five days after that 

He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, 

"Who then and there had offer'd something more, 

But he stood firm ; and so the matter hung ; 

He knew the man ; the colt would fetch its price ; 

He gave them line : and how by chance at last 

(It might be May or April, he forgot, 

The last of April or the first of May) 

He found the bailiff riding by the farm. 

And, talking from the point, he drew him in. 

And there he mellow'd all his heart with ale. 

Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand. 

' Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, 
Poor fellow, could he help it ? recommenced. 
And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle. 
Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 
Keform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, 



116 THE BROOK. 

Aibaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, 
Till, not to die a listener, I arose, 
And with me Philip, talking still ; and so 
We turn'd our foreheads from the falling smi, 
And following our own shadows thrice as long 
As when they follow'd us from Philip's door, 
Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content 
Ee-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 

I slide by hazel covers ; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 

That grow for happy lovers. 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance. 
Among my skimming swallows ; 

I make the netted sunbeam dance 
Against my sandy shallows. 

I murmur under moon and stars 

In brambly wildernesses ; 
I linger by my shingly bars ; 

I loiter round my cresses ; 



THE BROOK. 117 

And out again I curve and flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on for ever. 

Ves, men may come and go ; and these are gone, 

All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, 

Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, 

But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome 

Of Brunelleschi ; sleeps in peace : and he. 

Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words 

Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb : 

I scraped the lichen from it : Katie walks 

By the long wash of Australasian seas 

Far off, and holds her head to other stars. 

And breathes in converse seasons. All are gone.' 

So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a stile 
In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind 
Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook 
A tonsured head in middle age forlorn. 



118 THE BROOK. 

Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath 

Of tender air made tremble in the hedge 

The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings ; 

And he look'd up. There stood a maiden near, 

Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared 

On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair 

In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 

Divides three-fold to show the fruit within : 

Then, wondering, ask'd her ' Are you from the 

farm ? ' — 
' Yes ' answer'd she. — ' Pray stay a little : pardon 

me; 
What do they call you ? ' — ' Katie.' — ' That were 

strange. 
What surname ? ' — ' Willows.' ^ ' No ! ' — ' That is 

my name.' — 
' Indeed ! ' and here he look'd so self-perplext, 
That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he 
Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes, 
Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream. 



THE BROOK. 119 

Then looking at her ; ' Too happy, fresh and fair, 
Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom, 
To be the ghost of one who bore your name 
About these meadows, twenty years ago.' 

' Have you not heard ? ' said Katie, ' we came 
back. 
We bought the farm we tenanted before. 
Am I so like her ? so they said on board. 
Sir, if you knew her in her English days, 
My mother, as it seems you did, the days 
That most she loves to talk of, come with me. 
My brother James is in the harvest-field : 
But she — you will be welcome — 0, come in ! ' 



THE LETTERS. 



1. 

Still on the tower stood the vane, 

A black yew gloom 'd the stagnant air, 
I peer'd athwart the chancel pane 

And saw the altar cold and bare. 
A clog of lead was round my feet, 

A band of pain across my brow ; 
' Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet 

Before you hear my marriage vow.' 
121 



122 THE LETTERS. 

2. 
I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song 

That mock'd the wholesome human heart, 
And then we met in wrath and wrong, 

We met, but only meant to part. 
Full cold my greeting was and dry ; 

She faintly smiled, she hardly moved ; 
I saw with half-unconscious eye 

She wore the colors I approved. 



She took the little ivory chest. 

With half a sigh she turn'd the key. 
Then raised her head with lips comprest. 

And gave my letters back to me. 
And gave the trinkets and the rings, 

My gifts, when gifts of mine could please 
As looks a father on the things 

Of his dead son, I look'd on these. 



THE LETTERS. 123 

4. 

She told me all her friends had said ; 

I raged against the public liar ; 
She talk'd as if her love were dead, 

But in mj'- words were seeds of fire. 
' No more of love ; your sex is known : 

I never will be twice deceived. 
Henceforth I trust the man alone, 

The woman cannot be believed. 

5. 

' Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell 

(And women's slander is the worst), 
And you, whom once I loved so well, 

Thro' you, my life will be accurst.' 
I spoke with heart, and heat and force, 

I shook her breast with vague alarms — 
Like torrents from a mountain source 

We rush'd into each other's arms. 



124 THE LETTERS. 



We parted : sweetly gleam'd the stars, 

And sweet the vapor-braided blue, 
Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars, 

As homeward by the church I drew. 
The very graves appear'd to smile, 

So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells ; 
' Dark porch,' I said, ' and silent aisle. 

There comes a sound of marria.s^e bells.' 



ODE ON THE DEATH 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 



125 



ODE ON THE DEATH 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



1. 

Bury the Great Duke 

With an empire's lamentation, 
Let us bury the Great Duke 

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, 
Mourning when their leaders fall, 
Warriors carry the warrior's pall, 

And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 
]27 



12S ODE ON THE DEATH OF 

2. 

Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore ? 
Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
Let the sound of those he wrought for, 
And the feet of those he fought for, 
Echo round his bones for evermore. 

3. 

Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, 

As fits an universal woe, 

Let the long, long procession go, 

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 

And let the mournful martial music blow ; 

The last great Englishman is low. 

4. 

Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 
Rememberinof all his greatness in the Past. 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 129 

No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 
O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute : 
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute. 
Whole in himself, a common good. 
Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 
Our greatest yet with least pretence, 
Great in council and great in war, 
Foremost captain of his time, 
Rich in saving common-sense, 
And, as the greatest only are, 
In his simplicity sublime. 
O good gray head which all men knew, 
voice from which their omens all men drew, 
O iron nerve to true occasion true, 
O fall'n at length that tower of strength 
Which stood four-square to all the wmds that 
blew ! 



130 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 

Such was he whom we deplore. 
The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. 
The great World-victor's victor will be seen no 
more. 

5. 

All is over and done : 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

England, for thy son. 

Let the bell be toll'd. 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

And render him to the mould. 

Under the cross of gold 

That shines over city and river, 

There he shall rest for ever 

Among the wise and the bold. 

Let the bell be toll'd : 

And a reverent people behold 

The towering car, the sable steeds : 

Bright let it be with his blazon'd deeds, 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 131 

Dark in its funeral fold. 

Let the bell be toll'd : 

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd ; 

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd 

Thro' the dome of the golden cross ; 

And the volleying cannon thunder his loss ; 

He knew their voices of old. 

For many a time in many a clime 

His captain's-ear has heard them boom 

Bellowing victory, bellowing doom ; 

When he with those deep voices wrought, 

Guarding realms and kings from shame ; 

With those deep voices our dead captain taught 

The tyrant, and asserts his claim 

In that dread sound to the great name, 

Which he has worn so pure of blame. 

In praise and in dispraise the same, 

A man of well-attemper'd frame. 

O civic muse, to such a name, 

To such a name for ages long, 



132 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 

To such a name, 

Preserve a broad approach of fame, 

And ever-rmging avenues of song. 



Who is he that cometh like an honor'd guest, 

With banner and with music, with soldier and with 

priest. 
With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest ? 
Mighty seaman, this is he 
Was great by land as thou by sea. 
Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 
The greatest sailor since our world began. 
Now, to the roll of muffled drums. 
To thee the greatest soldier comes ; 
For this is he 

Was great by land as thou by sea ; 
His foes were thine ; he kept us free ; 
O give him welcome, this is he, 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 133 

Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 
And worthy to be laid by thee ; 
For this is England's greatest son, 
He that gain'd a hundred fights, 
Nor ever lost an English gun ; 
This is he that far away 
Against the myriads of Assaye 
Clash'd with his fiery few and won ; 
And underneath another sun, 
Warring on a later day. 
Round affrighted Lisbon drew 
The treble works, the vast designs 
Of his labor'd rampart-lines. 
Where he greatly stood at bay, 
Whence he issued forth anew. 
And ever great and greater grew. 
Beating from the wasted vines 
Back to France her banded swarms. 
Back to France with countless blows, 
Till o'er the hills her eades flew 



134 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 

Past the Pyrenean pines, 

Follow'd up in valley and glen 

With blare of bugle, clamor of men, 

Eoll of cannon and clash of arms, 

And England pouring on her foes. 

Such a war had such a close. 

Again their ravening eagle rose 

In anger, wheel'd on Europe-shadowing wings, 

And barking for the thrones of kings ; 

Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown 

On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down ; 

A day of onsets of despair ! 

Dash'd on every rocky square 

Their surging charges foam'd themselves away ; 

Last, the Prussian trumpet blew ; 

Through the long-tormented air 

Heaven flash'd a sudden jubilant ray. 

And down we swept and charged and overthrew. 

So great a soldier taught us there, 

What long-enduring hearts could do 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 135 

In that world's earthquake, Waterloo ! 

Mighty seaman, tender and true, 

And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 

saviour of the silver-coasted isle, 

O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 

If aught of things that here befall 

Touch a spirit among things divine, 

If love of country move thee there at all. 

Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine ! 

And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 

In full acclaim, 

A people's voice. 

The proof and echo of all human fame, 

A people's voice, when they rejoice 

At civic revel and pomp and game, 

Attest their great commander's claim 

With honor, honor, honor, honor to him. 

Eternal honor to his name. 



136 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 

7. 

A people's voice ! we are a people yet. 
Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget 
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers ; 
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 
His Saxon in blown seas and storming showers, 
We have a voice with which to pay the debt 
Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. 
And keep it ours, God, from brute control ; 
Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole, 
And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, 
That sober freedom out of which there springs 
Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ; 
For, saving that, ye help to save mankind 
Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
And drill the raw world for the march of mind, 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 137 

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just. 

But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 

Remember him who led your hosts ; 

He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 

Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall ; 

His voice is silent in your council-hall 

For ever ; and whatever tempests lower 

For ever silent ; even if they broke 

In thunder, silent ; yet remember all 

He spoke among you, and tlje Man who spoke ; 

Who never sold the truth, to serve the hour, 

Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; 

Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 

Thro' either babbling world of high and low ; 

Whose life was work, whose language rife 

With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 

Who never spoke against a foe ; 

Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 

All great self-seekers trampling on the right : 

Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named ; 



13S ODE ON THE DEATH OP 

Truth-lover was our English Duke ; 
Whatever record leap to light 
He never shall be shamed. 



8. 
Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 
Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
Follow'd by the brave of other lands, 
He, on whom from both her open hands 
Lavish Honor shower'd all her stars, 
And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 
Yea, let all good things await 
Him who cares not to be great, 
But as he saves or serves the state. 
Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 
The path of duty was the way to glory : 
He that walks it, only thirsting 
For the right, and learns to deaden 
Love of self, before his journey closes, 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 139 

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 

Into glossy purples, which outredden 

All voluptuous garden-roses. 

Not once or twice in our fair island story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He, that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward, and prevail'd, 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 

Such was he : his work is done : 

But while the races of mankind endure, 

Let his great example stand 

Colossal, seen of every land, 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure ; 

Till in all lands and thro' all human story 

The path of duty be the way to glory : 

And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame 



140 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 

For many and many an age proclaim 
At civic revel and pomp and game, 
And when the long-illumined cities flame, 
Their ever- loyal iron leader's fame. 
With honor, honor, honor, honor to him, 
Eternal honor to his name. 



9- 
Peace, his triumph will be sung 
By some yet unmoulded tongue 
Far on in summers that we shall not see : 
Peace, it is a day of pain 
For one about whose patriarchal knee 
Late the little children clung : 
O peace, it is a day of pain 
For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain 
Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. 
Ours the pain, be his the gain ! 
More than is of man's degree 



THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 141 

Must be with us, watching here 

At this, our great solemnity. 

Whom we see not we revere. 

We revere, and we refrain 

From talk of battles loud and vain, 

And brawling memories all too free 

For such a wise humility 

As befits a solemn fane : 

We revere, and while we hear 

The tides of Music's golden sea 

Setting toward eternity, 

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we. 

Until we doubt not that for one so true 

There must be otlier nobler work to do 

Than when he fought at Waterloo, 

And Victor he must ever be. 

For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 

And break the shore, and evermore 

Make and break, and work their will ; 

Tho' worlds on worlds in myriad myriads roll 



142 ODE ON THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 

Round us, each with different powers, 
And other forms of life than ours. 
What know we greater than the soul ? 
On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears : 
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears 
The black earth yawns : the mortal disappears ; 
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; 
He is gone who seem'd so great. — 
Gone ; but nothing can bereave him 
Of the force he made his own 
Being here, and we believe him 
Something far advanced in State, 
And that he wears a truer crown 
Than any \vreath that man can weave him. 
But speak no more of his renown, 
Lay your earthly fancies down, 
And in the vast cathedral leave him. 
God accept him, Christ receive him. 
1852. 



THE DAISY 



WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. 



O Love, what hours were thine and mine, 
In lands of palm and southern pine ; 

In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, 
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine. 

What Koman strength Turbia show'd 
In ruin, by the mountain road ; 

How like a gem, beneath the city 
Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd. 
143 



144 THE DAISY. 

How richly down the rocky dell 
The torrent vineyard streaming fell 

To meet the sun and sunny waters, 
That only heaved with a summer swell. 

What slender campanili grew 

By bays, the peacock's neck in hue ; 

Where, here and there, on sandy beaches 
A milky-bell'd amaryllis blew. 

How young Columbus seem'd to rove, 
Yet present in his natal grove, 

Now watching high on mountain cornice, 
And steering, now, from a purple cove, 

Now pacing mute by ocean's rim ; 
Till, in a narrow street and dim, 

I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, 
And drank, and loyally drank to him. 



THE DAISY. 145 

Nor knew we well what pleased us most, 
Not the dipt palm of which they boast; 

But distant color, happy hamlet, 
A moulder'd citadel on the coast. 

Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen 
A light amid its olives green ; 

Or olive-hoary cape in ocean ; 
Or rosy blossom in hot ravine. 

Where oleanders flush'd the bed 
Of silent torrents, gravel-spread ; 

And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten 
Of ice, far off on a mountain head. 

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, 
Those niched shapes of noble mould, 
A princely people's awful princes, 
The grave, severe Genovese of old. 
10 



146 THE DAISY. 

At Florence too what g-olden hours, 
In those long galleries, were ours ; 

What drives about the fresh Cascine, 
Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers. 

In bright vignettes, and each complete, 
Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet. 

Or palace, how the city glitter'd, 
Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet. 

But when we crost the Lombard plain 
Remember what a plague of rain ; 

Of rain at Reggio, at Parma ; 
At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. 

And stern and sad (so rare the smiles 
Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles ; 

Porch-pillars on the lion resting, 
And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles. 



THE DAISY. 147 

Milan, the chanting quires, 
The giant windows' blazon'd fires, 

The height, the space, the gloom, the glory ! 
A mount of marble, a hundred spires ! 

1 climb'd the roofs at break of day ; 
Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. 

I stood among the silent statues, 
And statued pinnacles, mute as they. 

How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair, 
Was Monte Eosa, hanging there 

A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys 
And snowy dells in a golden air. 

Remember how we came at last 
To Como ; shower and storm and blast 
Had blown the lake beyond his limit. 
And all was flooded ; and how we past 



148 THE DAISY. 

From Como, when the light was gray, 
And in my head, for half the day, 

The rich Yirgilian rustic measure 
Of Lari Maxume, all the way, 

Like ballad-burthen music, kept, 
As on The Lariano crept 

To that fair port below the castle 
Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept; 

Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake 
A cypress in the moonlight shake, 

The moonlight touching o'er a terrace 
One tall Agave above the lake. 

What more ? we took our last adieu, 
And up the snowy Splugen drew, 

But ere we reach'd the highest summit 
I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. 



THE DAISY. 149 

It told of England then to me, 
And now it tells of Italy. 

O love, we two shall go no longer 
To lands of summer beyond the sea ; 

So dear a life your arms enfold 
Whose crying is a cry for gold : 

Yet here to-night in this dark city, 
When ill and weary, alone and cold, 

I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry, 
This nursling of another sky 

Still in the little book you lent me, 
And where you tenderly laid it by : 

And I forgot the clouded Forth, 

The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, 

The bitter east, the misty summer 
And gray metropolis of the North. 



150 THE DAISY. 

Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, 
Perchance, to charm a vacant brain, 

Perchance, to dream you still beside me, 
My fancy fled to the South again. 



TO THE EEV. F. D. MAUKICE, 



Come, when no graver cares employ, 
Godfather, come and see your boy : 

Your presence will be sun in winter, 
Making the little one leap for joy. 

For, being of that honest few, 

Who give the Fiend himself his due, 

Should eighty-thousand college-councils 
Thunder ' Anathema,' friend, at you ; 
151 



152 TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. 

Should all our churchmen foam in spite 
At you, so careful of the right, 

Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome 
(Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight ; 

Where, far from noise and smoke of town, 
I watch the twilight falling brown 

All round a careless-order'd garden 
Close to the ridge of a noble down. 

You '11 have no scandal while you dine, 
But honest talk and wholesome wine, 

And only hear the magpie gossip 
Garrulous under a roof of pine : 

For groves of pine on either hand, 
To break the blast of winter, stand ; 

And further on, the hoary Channel 
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand ; 



TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. 153 

Where, if below the milky steep 
Some ship of battle slowly creep, 

And on thro' zones of light and shadow 
Glimmer away to the lonely deep, 

We might discuss the Northern sin 
Which made a selfish war begin; 

Dispute the claims, arrange the chances ; 
Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win : 

Or whether war's avenging rod 
Shall lash all Europe into blood; 

Till you should turn to dearer matters, 
Dear to the man that is dear to God ; 

How best to help the slender store, 
How mend the dwellings, of the poor; 

How gain in life, as life advances, 
Valor and charity more and more. 



Come, Maurice, come : the lawn as yet 
Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet ; 

But when the wreath of March has blossom'd, 
Crocus, anemone, violet, 

Or later, pay one visit here, 

For those are few we hold as dear ; 

Nor pay but one, but come for many, 
Many and many a happy year. 

January, 1854. 



WILL. 



1. 

WELL for him whose will is strong ! 

He suffers, but he will not suffer long ; 

He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong : 

For him nor moves the loud world's random mock 

Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, 

Who seems a promontory of rock, 

That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, 

In middle ocean meets the surging shock, 

Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd. 

2. 

But ill for him who, bettering not with time, 
Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, 
165 



156 WILL. 

And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime, 

Or seeming-genial venial fault, 

Recurring and suggesting still ! 

He seems as one whose footsteps halt, 

Toiling in immeasurable sand, 

And o'er a weary sultry land, 

Far beneath a blazing vault. 

Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill. 

The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 



CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 

1. 
Half a league, half a league, 

Half a league onward, 
All in the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 
" Charge," was the captain's cry ; 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs but to do and die, 
Into the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 
157 



153 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 



2. 



Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon in front of them 

Volley'd and thunder'd ; 
Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
Boldly they rode and well ; 
Into the jaws of Death, 
Into the mouth of Hell, 

Kode the six hundred. 



3. 

Flash'd all their sabres bare, 
Flash'd all at once in air. 
Sabring the gunners there, 
Charging an army, while 

All the world wonder'd : 
Plunged in the battery smoke, 



THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 159 

Fiercely the line they broke ; 
Strong was the sabre-stroke : 
Making an army reel 

Shaken and sunder'd. 
Then they rode back, but not, 

Not the six hundred. 

4. 

Cannon to right of them. 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon behind them 

Volley'd and thunder'd ; 
Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
They that had struck so well 
Rode thro' the jaws of Death, 
Half a league back again, 
Up from the mouth of Hel], 
All that was left of them, 

Left of six hundred. 



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August, 1855. 



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TENN3rso:s's Famous Battle Odc. -Tbe famous' 
' Ohargo of the Light Brigade," wli: ;;; '^nnyson 
Kvotc last year, svcl wLich vll"i*o(l '.} much com- 
Qcnt, appears :n tis new vohtnie of pi^cias. It ha3 
icen considerably altered, and tli i podt Laureata 
low suppresses the second vcrc^, a'j t the line in 
bo third ver&e which afiivmed tan*; 
Eome one had blundo-ci. 

The cccGT;d verse, i# tbe flvct pabl' cation, whicla 
' ^ r oniiiiod, was as follows : 

Into <Lc valley of De.th 

Kcde the six hir^dici. 
For up carue r.u o;der winch 

Some one Lad olundor'u, 
" Forvvai-d, ths L'ght j&\-hr.-a» ! 

Take the gui:s,'^NoUu'sai'.l : 
Into the valiey of Prath 

Eode the six hundred. 

There are changes in most of tiie vt?r3es. The 

Iteration in the last one is not an iwiprovement, 
ccording to ouv tasle. Wo give b<'tii versions, 
.fist year the ode ended thas : 

"When ciu theJr g'^c-yi'tdc ? 
0, the wild cbargo thoy ma:lv ! 

All the world '.voT)dercd. 
Honor tbe charge thoy tna Jo ! 
Honor tbe LigLt i>iii^adc ! 

Ncble six hundred! 

As published in " Maud," it i-Md? : 

Honor the biave ana bold : 
Long sball the tule be t' Id, 
Yea, whi-.ii nur huht-s r.ro o .1 — 
How they redo oowa-.d. 

IJSc^ton Tr itiscrlpt, Aug. 22. 



Of the new poem ■whJ-h Lon^^roUo'V has now ia 
ress, we fmd the subjoiueu bri-jf notee in the 
■ray en, of this week • 

" We extract the following from a private fetter 
" ♦! have been reading tbe she?t.s of Longfellow's 
ew poem — it will be pablishecl in a month ort^o. 
t is called the Song of Iliawetha, Jinti i? whoHy 
>undedupon Indian — American Indian — legends. 
t is verj' orignal, and has the si'ijplieity and charm 
f a Saga. There is little human interest in it, 
ut the character of the Indian legend is admir- 
bly preset vcd. It is the very antipodes of Ten- 
yscn's Maud, whi:u is a poem of th« present day, 
ery poetieol, very morbid, irrt'ig-ous and pain- 
:1. Tennyson, like so many of our modern poets, 
)rgctstbat beauty of imagery ?rJ expression are 
ot the only beauty required in a Iri^e poem, and 
uat happiness is a fine and nobler thing than 
srrov/.'" 



